Reclaim the disk space after Windows 10 installation

So you went away and decided to upgrade your pc to the new shiny version of Windows and now you find your disk usage has gone up just like cost of well everything? A lot of this space is occupied by the installation files that were downloaded for the upgrade to Windows 10 and your previous version of Windows.

So if you’re feeling in love with the new version of Windows and want to to have nothing to do with the previous one, you can do so easily by doing this:

Advertisements

Start >Run > cleanmgr {Press Enter}

Select the drive on which Windows resides (usually C:) and click on OK.

Now click on this nifty button that says Clean up system files. You notice a shield on the button? Can you identify whose sigil is on it? *kidding* . It means you’ll need administrative access to do so. And I’m expecting you do have administrative access to this pc of yours you so want to clean.

Now the Disk Cleanup applet will run in admin mode and will show a lot more options before it was knighted by you.

One of these options will be Previous Windows Installation(s) as shown in the screenshot:

This is the one which is holding you back. These are the files which are required if you want to go back and live with your ex (i.e. Windows installation). If you scroll down, you’ll notice temporary installation files too. You can select them for good measure and click on OK.

Windows will confirm if you really want to burn the bridges :

If you click Yes, the old installation and the temporary files will be removed. It’s like deleting your ex’s number from your phonebook. But can you forget the number?